Your Status: You Can't Buy It

What It Really Means To Have Status

First of all, in this context, "your status" does not just mean the assembled details that indicate how much money you have. That's something you probably can buy, or at least it's easier to buy than the sociological concept we're talking about, which is the way you display to everyone else your place in the world, as you perceive it, and your inherent value. How you carry yourself is often just as important as what you're wearing, and only one of those things can be flat-out bought with cash.

We've talked about why status matters, but the focus is a little different this time. On a personal level, a one-on-one conversation or at a dinner, in medias res, behavior is almost all there is to talk about, since you've already made the all-important initial impression. But here we're discussing whether or not you can buy your status (and, in case you haven't guessed yet, you can't). This time, the focus is less on behavior than consumer culture, and how its nature prevents you from just slapping a wad of bills on someone's counter and asking to be respected by your peers, please.

1- Your status is about self-worth, not material worth

Status is not simple, but it has more to do with confidence than wealth. This isn't to say that it's completely independent of wealth, and in some situations a person's going to conclude all he feels he needs to know about you based on the car you show up in. There is a material component, of course — you display a lot about your character if you walk into a room in tailored clothes, dressed appropriately for the event, just as you say a lot about yourself if you're carrying a hobo bindle on a stick — but almost any material example you think of is also about savviness and good taste. You need to have a discerning eye and the presence of mind to spend money intelligently in the first place.

2- Status symbols can change

Commercial status can't be bought because it's not a fixed concept like cost or trendiness; status isn't the same thing from year to year. Eco-friendliness and sustainable living were on the very fringes of status considerations a few decades ago, and if your only concern had been following short-term trends or dropping cash on whichever gluttonous SUV seemed the most monolithic and, therefore, impressive, you wouldn't just find yourself out of touch with existing status symbols. You'd be completely at odds with them. From a broader perspective, status has functioned this way pretty much forever (think back to the catastrophic way being pale and overweight were once indications of health and beauty, when they now indicate literally the exact opposite of those things).